A friend posted a picture recently about one of the most ingenious products I have ever seen: A Fish ‘n Flush.

The Fish ‘n Flush is a toilet, yes, a toilet. There is a minuscule tank in the back for the flushing, surrounded by a beautiful fish tank. Some toilet engineers one night, looking for a creative way to save water, decided to minimize the flushing tank and fill up the rest of the space with a fish tank. Their idea sky-rocketed. They have appeared all over talk shows, magazine ads, and house designing shows.

It is gorgeous. It is inventive. It is mediation.

Conflict, like, well, like the whole business of a toilet, is seen as ugly. Something you want to hide. You don’t want other people to know about or pay attention to. It might be something that happens to other people, but not you.

But then mediators come in and help clients to transform that ugly ole embarrassing conflict into something creative, helpful, and beautiful. Like putting a fish tank on a toilet.

This concept: turning ugly into beautiful, mourning into dancing, toilet into fish tank, is something that Fairly Legal has mastered. The show Fairly Legal has a kooky mediator, Kate Reed, go into ugly difficult conflicts. Through a variety of creative tactics, she takes this embarrassing conflict and turns it into something beautiful.

Sometimes it’s important to forget the process, forget the confidentiality concerns, forget the certification questions, and remember our true calling: Turn a Toilet into a Fish Tank.